


more like a weaver, myself

by Emamel



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Strangeness, Does the Web ship Jon/Martin? Maybe!, Manipulation, Other, Possessiveness (by an eldritch fear god), Surprisingly tame given the source material, Told from the perspective of a literal fear entity because why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 15:39:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17490680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emamel/pseuds/Emamel
Summary: The Web knows how to wait, how to play the long game.Or - Jon Sims was marked by his first encounter with the paranormal, more than he knew.





	more like a weaver, myself

**Author's Note:**

> Look this was written in one sitting, in the space of a few hours, by someone who is, at this point, chronically sleep deprived. Can you tell? Probably! Do I care? I will tomorrow! Have I edited this? Of course not!
> 
> Just wanted to write a little something where the web didn't give up on poor Jon quite so easily. Can mostly run concurrent to canon, but diverges at the very end.
> 
> Find me on tumblr at theaceace. I shout about podcasts a lot, and sometimes post terrible headcanons. It's great fun, and I always want to talk to people.

The boy is afraid. This is not strange – it is good, in fact. The boy should be afraid. It _wants_ him to be afraid. Limbs paralysed by fear are so much easier to twist than those that fight back. It wouldn’t be much of a fight either way, of course. Not for it.

The boy is small, a full head shorter than the children he stumbles past, and spindly. His long fingers linger over the corner of each page before he turns it, and his feet find their way unerringly over the uneven path, eyes never once leaving the page. He doesn’t see the fine strands of web looping themselves around his ankles, tugging his feet into place; but then, he wouldn’t be able to see them even if he knew to try.

His name is Jonny, a frustrated huff from the mouth of his grandmother; or young mister Sims, fond and exceptionally dry from his neighbour; or freak, muttered and unheard by a couple of children that watch him pass with narrow eyes; or little Einstein, from the boy that slaps the book from his hand.

Or _mine_ , from the Web.

But the book is in new hands now, larger, and already marked with little burn scars from a lighter tucked in a back pocket. If left, _this_ boy would wander close to the Desolation, may even be claimed. Normally, the Web wouldn’t notice. The sort of people drawn to the flames weren’t the sort of people it wanted to pull in, but this is different. This is an interruption. This is an _insult_.

The threads around this new boy draw tight, far tighter than they would have had to around _Jonny Sims **mine**_. This boy would fight, if he were capable. Jonny Sims _mine_ would follow his desperate curiosity to the ends of the Earth with little more than a guiding tug here and there to shift his attention. It would have been so easy to lure him in; an odd feeling here, the imitation of a mystery there. But now the connection is stretched thin – not broken, not quite. Weakened. Easier to ignore.

 _Jonny Sims (mine)_ doesn’t ignore it. He follows the little _insect_ of a teenager, every one of his limbs tight with fear, breath short. He shivers – he hasn’t noticed that he isn’t wearing a jacket, or shoes. That he’d wandered out of the house, past his grandmother asleep in her armchair. She won’t wake until it is too late.

He follows, two steps behind, down every narrow little twisting road. His eyes never leave the boy ahead, never once glance at his surroundings, but the Web can feel the way he catalogues information as he goes. All the little background sensations, the smells, the sounds. He files it all away in the very back of his mind to pause over later. The Web approves, as much as it is able. Though information, _watching_ , is every part the domain of Beholding, manipulation is impossible unless you know at least the shape of a person; even the vaguest outline. Its Jonny Sims is too straightforward for any such machinations as he is. There is potential there, but for now he is too demanding, too impatient. The Web moves slowly, at a pace that it thinks would frustrate him.

Not that it matters, of course. It would be nice to have him alive, but it’s in no way a necessity.

Jonny Sims _miiiiiine_ stops in the middle of the road when the teenager reaches the door. He stands well back, shivers running up and down the length of his body now. He does nothing but watch as the door opens, as the Web reaches out one of its many, many legs to this scrap of a meal. His eyes are wide, with mingled terror and sickened fascination.

He stares, and stares, and stares, until the door shuts again with a soft _snick_ , and he never once notices the gossamer threads curled around his fingertips.

 

* * *

 

The Web never loses him. Of course it doesn’t. But the Web is patient, in its own way, and it doesn’t have a need for him.

It may never _need_ him. That isn’t the point.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t help him when he finds the application for the Magnus Institute – a research position, pinned haphazardly to the board outside his professor’s office – but it also doesn’t try to stop him. Jonny Sims (who goes by Jon now, which fits his severe features and clipped tone, but not the nights he still wakes on a flinch, the feeling of phantom legs curling around his chest, his arms, into his hair) is still as insatiably curious as he had ever been. The Web isn’t surprised that he would be so quickly enamoured with the Beholding’s stronghold – even if serious, straightforward _Jon_ would never think to use such a word when describing himself.

The Web also isn’t worried. Its threads have never let him go, over the years, its many eyes following him. But it has thousands of other threads, all tugging at its attention, all clamouring for its notice. There are others out there it watches, that are wrapped up far tighter than little Jonny Sims. It can’t focus all of its energy on him – but it also knows that Beholding will be content to watch, and watch, and watch, and do nothing else, even when a man with silvery cobwebs woven through his hair crosses the threshold for the first time.

Of course, the head of the Institute notices; he Looks through the mind of _Jonathan_ , quick and light. Sees the book, the door, the low-level fear and disgust inspired by even the thought of spiders ever since. Sees it all, and dismisses it as unimportant. Either the Beholding will claim him as its own, here where it is strongest, or he will die quickly enough. That’s how it always goes; mostly in the Archives, but throughout the rest of the Institute as well.

And so, Jonny Sims – _mine, mine, MINE -_ starts his new job at the Magnus Institute, London.

 

* * *

 

The Web can feel it, when Beholding takes notice. That’s fine. He belonged to it first.

 

* * *

 

Things get complicated eventually, because of course they do. There is, to an extent, some level of protection that is implied by Jon’s position as Archivist. It is not complete – of course not, the Beholding doesn’t go around _claiming_ people, that would be far too much like interfering – but it does make it harder to strengthen its own hold on him.

So it has to improvise a little.

It had known what Elias Bouchard was planning for a while, and Elias Bouchard had known it had known. It had known what would happen to Jonny Sims when he disappeared down and lost himself among the statements, and it found itself repulsed on a deep, vicious level. How dare he, how  _dare_ he?

It can’t stop him – manipulation of a thing like Elias Bouchard is exceptionally difficult, and utterly impossible without some element of surprise. Something that it lost the first day Jonny Sims **MINE** had walked into his office. Its Jonny Sims will be the Archivist, and that is that.

Except.

It has many, many pieces in motion already, always does; it is the work of half a thought and mere moments to shift a couple around, and tug a flyer enticingly in the wind, to pull someone two steps forward to clear a line of sight, and let it catch the eye of Martin Blackwood without ever once touching him.

Martin introduces himself the first day, standing in the threshold of the Archivist’s office, stammering and unable to meet the eyes of his immediate boss. A furious flush colours his cheeks and spreads patchily down his throat that it notes with – not interest, exactly. But it notes it all the same. No doubt it can utilise that, at some point.

He is taller than little Jonny Sims – even if _Jonathan_ were to straighten out of the terrible hunch he maintains over books, laptops, the morning paper – and broader too. He is nothing at all like the sour faced and wiry boy the Web almost caught all those years ago, but that same curiosity sits on the back of his tongue. He is immediately taken with the sullen, scowling face, and the Web feels a little surge of triumph at its choice. It won’t take long for Martin to do _anything_ for its Jonny Sims, even though his first impression is a deeply displeased twitch of the mouth and a curt _has no one told you it’s polite to knock?_

The Archivist barely glances up from his notes, even as Martin manages to make his apologies. Not when he returns with a tray of tea and biscuits, and carefully knocks on the doorframe, tray precariously balanced on one arm. Only takes the mug with a muttered _thank you_ , not even glancing at the spiderwebbed pattern of cracks in the glaze.

It is, it feels, an excellent start.

It likes Martin, insofar as it can like anything. He is useless to it on his own, of course, with no innate fear of spiders, and a certain dismissal of manipulation; like he thinks he is far enough below anyone’s notice as to be not worth the time or effort put into such a thing. But he is a grounding presence, soft and warm and human, and never shoos away the spiders in his apartment. He will be good for Jonny Sims (the _Archivist_ now), good at drawing him out of the confines of his own head, and the heads of the people on paper.

And – more importantly – Elias Bouchard will never think to look twice at him.

 

* * *

 

The others leave their marks on its Jonny.

Scars.

Fears.

 _Statements_.

Oh, it doesn’t like that. It doesn’t like that at all.

 

* * *

 

For all that Elias Bouchard likes to think of himself as all-seeing, for all that he boasts of knowing everything that happens in his Institute, he never notices the odd little cobweb here and there. Nowhere he would frequent, of course. Nowhere he would think to look too closely.

Places like the stationary cupboard. The second-floor bathroom that always has at least one tap not working. The tea room.

It watches and listens, contents itself with occasionally scaring an employee half out of their wits as they turn around and spot a fat cardinal spider on the wall that seconds ago had been empty. Although he isn’t watching for it, even Elias Bouchard would notice if it stole away one of his employees.

It waits.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t quite have all the time in the world, but it at least has longer than the Stranger.

It’s proud, in its way, of Martin Blackwood. He shows remarkable aptitude for the sort of twisting thoughts and careful, delicate traps it prefers. It likes, as well, to see its lighter put to good use. A gift for its Jonny Sims, originally, but this pleases it very well too, watching the statements go up in flames from eight little eyes in the corner of the room. It had started to get bold, when it realised what they were planning. When it realised the sort of danger Jonny Sims – _no NO MINE MINE! –_ was about to put himself in.

When it realised Elias Bouchard wouldn’t be a problem for too much longer.

It knows – or is fairly certain, at least – what will take over his role as the head of the Institute, and it knows it has little to fear from the Lonely. So wrapped up in their own little heads, and their own wide worlds, the Lukas family never notice anything it doesn’t want them to. Slipping under _that_ radar will be child’s play.

But still, it doesn’t quite have all the time in the world. As much as the thought repulsed him, its Jonny Sims took to the role of Archivist like a fly to a web – struggling and terrified, but inevitable. Caught all the tighter for his thrashing. Almost resigned to his own consumption.

And that won’t do, not at all. As he gets pulled in deeper to the mess of dreams and statements all knotted up inside his head, its threads pull taught, threaten to snap. It can’t have that, not at all.

It has its ideas, though. Its _plans_. Now there is no Elias Bouchard to keep a watchful eye over the Assistants, and Peter Lukas wouldn’t know what to look for.

It watches the despair begin to overtake them. The two women don’t come to visit its Jonny Sims often, and when they do, they are tense. One – tall, with hair scraped back from her face at all times – clenches her jaw so tight the muscles bulge, like she wants to shout. Sometimes she does. The nurses here know better than to interrupt. That one is very good at masking fear as fury.

The other – lighter on her feet, with tired, tired eyes – says very little, only sighs and tucks a tape recorder into her bag for each visit. Just in case.

Martin’s fear is palpable, though. It’s almost thick enough to see in the air, and often flavoured by tears. He visits more than anyone else combined, and will sit for hours, apparently content to do nothing but read heavy tomes bound in suspicious materials, and occasionally point out what he considers an interesting passage to the unresponsive Archivist. Days go past, then weeks, and he visits no less, although he stops chatting about the books he’s reading, stops muttering to the Archivist about how much he is needed, stops – well. He doesn’t stop trying, but he does stop hoping. It sees the moment something in him settles, when he makes a decision. When he hovers over the Archivist, torn, hesitant, and settles eventually for running a careful hand over his forehead, through his hair. When he mutters that he's _sorry, Jonny, I don't know what else to try._

It starts to weave.

 

* * *

 

There is more grey in his hair now, and the delicate pattern of veins under his skin looks different. His eyes, when they open, are for a moment black from lid to lid, before he blinks and they settle back to bloodshot sclera, rich brown irises, pinprick pupils. The room is empty besides him, and a little money spider making its home on the window.

Jonny Sims breathes, blinks all of his eyes, and wakes up.


End file.
